Marquis Hill, raised in the Chatham neighborhood-on Chicago’s South Side, is 18th Street Arts Center’s 2015 Make Jazz Fellow. Hill has become one of the most in-demand jazz trumpeters in the Windy City. Leading his Blacktet, the trumpeter also works with saxophonist Ernest Dawkins, pianist Willerm Delisfort, bassist Matt Ulery, the Chicago Jazz Orchestra, and other groups. Most recently Marquis Hill won the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Trumpet competition (2014).

During his residency, Marquis Hill has been composing a series of works inspired by six specific poems by six African-American poets of diverse generations: Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, and Claude McKay. Each poem is a distinct story, telling of the struggles of African-Americans in the US. In this new series of compositions, Hill will interpret each poem through music, painting a rhythmic and melodious picture of the stories told.

“As I began to read these poets–some of whom I was previously unfamiliar–each had at least one poem that spoke to me, a poem that as I read it, I already started to hear the music.” – Marquis Hill

Sponsored by the Herb Alpert Foundation to honor and support jazz artists, 18th Street Arts Center annually hosts its Make Jazz Fellowship, awarded to a jazz composer for a three-month, fully funded residency. This opportunity is for an individual jazz artist to advance or complete a body of original compositions. For three months the Make Jazz Fellow lives and works among artists in sunny Santa Monica, California. The award supports the artist by providing a monthly stipend, a furnished live-in studio, and arranged opportunities to inspire Jazz students in partnership with Los Angeles-area colleges and universities.